One Line: Five Secrets Elena Never Kept
by Vashti
Summary: Elena is an open and honest woman, hiding nothing. -Companion story to the One Line series; follows "Do You Remember."-
1. I Know I Don't Know You

**Title**: Five Secrets Elena Samuelle Never Kept  
**Series**: One Line companion  
**Author**: Vashti  
**Characters**: Elena Samuelle, Michael Samuelle, Adam Samuelle, Simone, Madeline  
**Rating**: PG – PG-13  
**Summary**: Elena is an open and honest woman, hiding nothing.  
**Length**: ~5,450 words total  
**Spoiler**: entire series  
**Disclaimer**: I don't know you, you don't know me. Let's keep it that way.  
**Feedback**: it's like air.  
**Author's Note**: These stories are not interrelated, but, as I found out when this was first posted on the lfn_fanfiction livejournal community, they can be read together. In the spirit of the 5 Things challenge, the are all also AU.

* * *

Five Secrets Elena Samuelle Never Kept  
by Vashti

_A _One Line Series_ companion story._

**1. I Know I Don't Know You**

Elena is a content woman. She has a beautiful husband, a lovely and precocious child and a house that was better than the one she had dreamed of when she was Adam's age.

As her mother frequently points out, it hardly matters that Michael doesn't love her. It scarcely makes a difference that touching him is like touching a wall – that taking his arm when they go out is like being on the arm of a mannequin. It feels as unreal.

Sometimes she wonders if it had ever really been different—if there had been a time when there was fire in his eyes and not ice. Calculation.

She wonders if he ever used to hide this from her. She wonders if she had merely been blinded by his loveliness, by his gallant manner and by the way he shunned all others to give her his attention. He is, after all, still lovely, still gallant. And he still gives her the impression of focusing all of himself on her when she speaks. It's just every other time…

And he's not inconsiderate.

And she only wonders sometimes.

It's Adam she worries about. Elena knows what it is to grow up without a father. How much harder must it be for a boy?

It disturbs her, watching them together. She had hoped that having a child, particularly a son, would bring them closer. Barring that, that it would bring Michael some joy. Barring that, that it would bring him some life. It seemed to do none of those things.

Even as an infant Adam had been unnaturally still around his father. She remembers waking up in her hospital bed, tense and alarmed, convinced with a new mother's panic that something horrible had happened to her newborn. But he had been fine, cradled in the arms of his father. And so quiet. So still. He did none of the fist waving he had done for her or his nurse or his grandmother. He had been so still, in fact, that Elena had thought he was sleeping – though there had been a flickering worry that the infant Adam was dead.

She remembers how her shifting to sit up had attracted Michael's attention. How she had caught a flash of her son's dark eyes as Michael turned and brought him to her. The clock on the wall had been loud as he'd handed the infant to her and kissed her forehead. "He's beautiful," he had whispered into her ear before he'd kissed her cheek and left the room. When she'd looked down, she had found Adam staring at the door.

Which is how she usually finds him when Michael is home: quiet, still and staring at his father. It's probably a good thing that Michael is away so often. Elena scarcely recognizes her bright and boisterous boy when he is home.

And it's so much easier to pretend to be the happy wife, mother and homemaker when Michael is away. Easier to believe that it's true.

Sometimes, though, she amuses herself with the belief that someone out there is making him happy. That the affair Michael is having is more fulfilling than the life they have attempted to create together. She loves him. And she wants him to be happy – the way their son makes her happy.

One of them deserves to be really, completely, happy

But somehow she knows he's faithful, though she doesn't understand why. She understands her own reasoning: no one else fills a room like Michael. No one else steals her breath when they look at her. No one else does more for her or tries to please her the way Michael does. No one else looks out at her from her son's eyes.

So he doesn't love her. Michael makes no demands she can't meet. He gives her everything she asks for within his means. She suspects he even acquiesces to things he'd rather not to keep things unspoken between them.

So she's married to someone cold. He's there when she needs him. He puts on for the neighbors. If she asks him, he'll give her a daughter. A child for her. A companion for their son.

And if sometimes she longs for passion, for fire, she concedes that she has never known passion and wouldn't know what to do with a blaze.

So she is content.


	2. Some Conversation, No Contemplation

**2. Some Conversation, No ****Contemplation**

The corners of Elena's mouth lifted behind her cup as they crossed their legs simultaneously under the table and kicked each other. Simone lifted an eyebrow and tried to hide her own smile behind an oversized mug. When Elena's brow also went up they had no choice: they burst into helpless laughter.

"What have I told you about making me laugh when I have something hot in my hands?" Simone demanded.

"I don't know. I think you were snorting too hard at the time for me to understand you."

Simone flicked croissant crust at her.

The moment passed. Both women shifted to her respective right. Elena cradled her cappuccino, inches away from her mouth. Simone pushed a long smooth curl behind her ear and stared out at the street past Elena's shoulder.

While they had this moment of pretending not to be aware of each other, Elena studied the woman before her. Where she herself was a warm bronze, Simone was pale porcelain. Where Elena had tried to tame her voluminous curls by straightening and cutting her hair, Simone's curled and brushed her shoulder blades. And at scarcely one meter six, she made Elena feel tall and imposing.

It made it difficult to understand how—

Elena turned her head, looking into the dim interior of the café and the waiters moving within. Her chin-length hair swung into her eyes. She pushed it back and sipped her cappuccino. When she turned back, Simone was studying her: "How is he?"

She pushed her hair behind her ear, again. It was too short to really stay. "Good. And with you?"

Simone nodded. Pushed a curl behind her own ear. "Good."

"And how's work?"

"The same. It could always be better." Simone dabbed at the croissant flakes on her plate with her index finger. "And you? How's school? You're almost done, aren't you?"

Elena nodded. "Working on my thesis even now. My brain's ready to drip out of my ears."

"I know the feeling."

"Hmm."

They were sipping their respective beverages when the waiter came with the bill. Elena put down her cup and reached for it. Simone was faster. "I've got it this time."

"Really it's—"

"You're a struggling university student—"

"Graduate student."

"—whose husband is often away from home."

"On business. Rather lucrative business," she added, cutting her eyes toward the interior of the café.

"The point is you have a cover to maintain. And I specialize in maintaining covers."

Their eyes met and held. Elena rolled her eyes and made a rude sound as she relinquished her rights to the bill. "Only because it's you."

Simone gave a smirking half smile and Elena's breath caught. Who had gotten the smile from whom, she wondered as she watched the other woman bend over the tile-inlaid table and scribble out her name. Their waiter, apparently, had been watching. He appeared at her elbow the moment the pen left the paper.

"Let's get out of here," Elena said as soon as he disappeared. "Besides, you owe me."

"Oh?" Simone raised an eyebrow, studying her. "What do I owe you?"

"Shoes. Remember two weeks ago when you had to back out on me because something 'came up'?"

Simone pursed her lips. "My strained shoulders certainly remember. So you want to go shoe shopping? You had this planned even before I called, didn't you?" she asked as Elena rose.

"No one's going to hold those beautiful shoes for us if we don't get moving."

Rolling her eyes, Simone stood.

*

They were standing shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, admiring the display and trying to determine if they wanted to patronize the boutique.

"I'm pregnant."

Simone met her eyes in the window. "You haven't told, Michael. Why?"

Elena shrugged, but said, "I thought you should know first."

"He's going to be thrilled." Simone returned to looking at the fanciful shoes.

Elena glanced down at the tiny woman. Then back at the shoes. They slowly made their way across the face of the windows, moving from one side of the entrance to the others. "But how do you feel about it?" she asked finally.

"Let's go inside."

*

"It's been a month. You still haven't told Michael. Why?"

Wide-eyed, Elena looked up from the round rack of clothes. "How do you—?" She stopped nodding to herself. "Right. You would have been briefed."

"And he would have told me."

"Of course."

Their eyes met.

"What are you waiting for?"

Elena dropped her eyes, rummaging through the rack again. As she thought she might, Simone stood still as Elena worked her way around. When they were standing shoulder to shoulder – managing it only because Simone was in heels – Elena picked up a shimmering gold cardigan that, while not her style, would give the Chinese woman's skin a warm glow. She held it near Simone's face. "I'm thinking of terminating it."

"What?"

"I'm thinking of terminating the pregnancy," Elena said slowly. Simone's next question was written across her face, so Elena answered it: "Because…because I don't know if I can do this. To Michael. To you. To this baby. What am I going to do if—"

Simone snatched the cardigan from her and stuffed it back in the rack. "No ifs," she hissed. "You can't play that game. That's the one we play. You don't know how happy this will make Michael. We can't have children, Elena."

"I know."

"This will be his only chance."

"But you can't—"

"Don't think about me. Don't consider me. _You_ are married to Michael. You are _married_ to Michael."

"But—"

"But I can't do that for him. I don't have that option. He's lost everything else. Don't deny him this chance," Simone said, searching Elena's eyes.

*

Michael dropped a kiss on Elena's shoulder as he crouched beside her chair. "You're picking up all my bad habits."

Smiling, she twisted in her seat to face him. "Why do you say that?"

He gestured broadly to her seated at the computer desk. "Usually I'm the one who brings work home and stays up all night doing it."

"Speaking of which, what are you doing up? You were sound asleep when I climbed out of bed."

He placed his large hands warm against her waist. "I got cold." When Elena smirked at him, he gestured to the computer screen with his chin. "What are you working on so late?"

"I couldn't sleep so I decided to grade some papers."

He kissed her bare knee. "A teaching assistant's job is never done."

"And more and more of the students are starting to email their papers instead of submitting them in class, so I decided to check the department inbox—"

"Anything?"

Elena chuckled with dulled humor. "More than I expected. I hope we have plenty of paper in the printer. And an extra ink cartridge. We're low if I remember correctly."

Michael studied her face for a long moment. She let him. "There's something else. You can't be that worried about office supplies. I promise I'll buy you more in the morning. I don't have to go in tomorrow."

"I know."

"Then what's wrong?"

"There's a message on the department notice-board. From a colleague. Obviously." She paused, knowing that he would let the silence persist until she was ready to go on. "She's had to take an unexpected leave and…she's pretty sure she won't be back until next semester."

"You were…close?"

Elena smiled at the skepticism that laced Michael's voice. Little wonder: he knew more about the people she considered herself close to than she did. "Not exactly. But we were friendly."

"Then what—"

"She's going to miss the pregnancy."

Michael's hands clenched convulsively around her waist, but otherwise he was still as stone. Elena met his blank eyes with the words of Simone's email echoing in her mind. _"Yesterday I went on and on about Michael…"_

"We're going to have a baby," she told him.

_"…but you deserve this chance too. Don't deny _yourself_."_

Michael lowered his head until his forehead rested on the lowest part of her sternum, his breath hot and fast through her nightshirt. His arms encircled her waist, bringing her closer, until Elena was made to open her legs and cross her arms over his shoulders or use her body as a barrier between them.

*

"These are newer?"

Smiling, Elena nodded as Simone tucked a long curl behind her ear and flipped through the photos in her hand. There were another three envelopes of pictures – weighed down by a salt shaker, the edge of a plate and Simone's elbow – chronicling the last year of Elena's life. She had another six envelopes in the oversized sack she was passing off as a handbag, but the four at hand represented the best of the time the two women had spent apart. Or so Elena hoped. She'd chosen carefully, trying not to lord the new life she and Michael shared over Simone.

Simone had determined that the pregnancy would put the growing Samuelle family under too much surveillance for the two women to safely meet. And so they hadn't. There were occasional emails, but the communication form was so easy to intercept that their messages were necessarily insubstantial. Over the course of the year Elena had found herself missing the petite Chinese woman more and more. There were no calls to reassure her that her husband was coming home, that the mission had gone off well. No one to ask if her personal tails had been changed lately. Or how to ditch them for an hour or two.

No one to share her pregnancy fears, _all_ her pregnancy fears, with.

No one to interpret Michael's more quixotic and cryptic moods.

No one else who had full disclosure.

Simone looked up. "None of Michael?"

Why she had thought Simone wouldn't notice, Elena didn't know. Simone was trained to notice. "I thought it'd be better—"

"It was a good choice."

Their eyes met. Simone went back to looking at the pictures.

*

_A petite Asian woman drops into the seat across from her. She quirks an eyebrow as if she has been studying her. "This whole thing might have been a lot easier if you weren't so pretty."_

_Elena blinks. She'd heard a lot about rude Americans, but this was her first personal experience with one. "Pardon? Do I know—"_

_The woman extends a hand. Manners dictate that Elena take it. "Simone," the woman says when she does. "Simone Samuelle."_

_Elena drops the hand as if it's a live snake. "What—"_

_"Michael's other wife. Although since I'm a legal non-entity I guess that makes you the real wife and me the mistress."_

_Elena stares at her, dumbfounded. And this Simone person seems content to let her. It takes her a moment but Elena eventually finds her voice: "How dare you? I don't know who you are but—"_

_"No," Simone interrupts sharply. " No, you know who I am. Michael said you were a smart girl. You had to have wondered where he was, who he was seeing." She shakes her head, looking out of the café onto the street. "You can't have missed that the things he's telling you don't exactly add up."_

_"So you're telling me he's been with you?" Elena asks, examining the other woman now and wishing that she had gotten a better look at her before Simone sat down._

_Simone snorts and brings her eyes forward. "Not hardly."_

_"So…you're here to tell me to back off? You had him first and—"_

_"Not that either. I couldn't tell you to back off any more than Michael could walk away from your marriage. The same way he couldn't have not married you."_

_Elena's eyes narrow. "I don't understand."_

_"Of course not. But I'm about to explain it to you." Raising a hand, Simone attracts the attention of a waiter._

_When he leaves, Elena says, "Explain what? How I should let _him_ go since he apparently can't walk away? Why?" She knows she is angry, furious. She can feel the hot flashes of color in her face._

_"If only it was that easy," Simone says with an earnest pain that douses some of Elena's anger. "I am going to explain why he can't walk away, but not so that you'll get a divorce. That's…" she shakes her head. "That's, surprise, surprise, the last thing I want. No I'm going to tell you _why _– tell you everything, full disclosure – because he loves you."_

*

Elena's hand hovered over the telephone. She had just gotten off with Michael's "secretary." He had been called out of town unexpectedly, but should be home as expected tomorrow. She'd said thank you and hung up. And here she was…waiting. Waiting for a call that she knew wouldn't come. Not ever again.

"Mama?"

Elena turned around. Adam was sitting in the doorway. She'd actually forgotten about him, which made it all worse.

Plastering a smile on her face, Elena swooped down on her son. "Hello, my love! What are you doing up, hmm? Did the telly wake you?"

"Telly!"

Elena nodded at her young son. "Yes, the telephone."

When she'd gotten his arms around her neck she stood up with him and settled him on her hip. "How would you like to go next door and spend the night with Flora and her mummy and daddy?"

"Floor!"

"Flora," she gently corrected as she turned them around and walked back to her bedroom.

Adam nodded. "Floor."

Elena gave him a true smile. "I love you."

She got a pudgy fist to her mouth. Which she grabbed and kissed. Sure that he had a tight grip on her, Elena took the telephone from beside the bed. "Come, m'love, let's get you ready while I call Flora, hmm?"

"Floor!"

"Yes, darling." And while Adam was being pampered and coddled by the neighbor's girl, she could mourn the loss of her best friend.


	3. When Every Back is Turned

**3. When Every Back is Turned [We All Know His Sins]**

Michael raised their joined hands to his lips and blew on her bare fingers. He smiled up at her. "Better?"

Elena grinned. "Much. I should _not_ have let you take my glove off, and when I did I should have taken you up on cuppa when we passed that ven— Oh!" She gestured with her chin. "What about him?"

Eyebrows going up Michael followed her eyes as they tracked the person in question moving through the park.

Elena nudged his side when he didn't respond. "Come on… No opinion at all?"

"He's handsome enough."

"But…?"

"Look at that nose, Elena."

She frowned. "Oh, I didn't notice that. Moving on then."

Hand in hand, the pair sat pressed together on a park bench they had lain claim to for over an hour and visually perused the people going about the business of enjoying the clear brisk day. Elena crossed her right leg over her left so that it was practically in Michael's lap. He turned to quirk an eyebrow at the move when something caught his eye. "How about him?"

Elena looked up. Then slapped his arm. "Michael! Really! He's absolutely queer. I can't believe you didn't notice. I bet he walks better in heels than I do."

Laughing softly, Michael leaned toward her, nuzzling her hair with his cold nose. "I did notice."

She turned toward him, mouth open in surprise as she studied his face. He ducked in and kissed her.

"We're not here for you," she reminded him, trying to sound stern.

"Of course we are," he said softly and squeezing her fingers. Eyes back on the park at large, he kissed her forehead. "It's very important to my continued existence that you have a child," he continued in a very practical tone, "even if thinking of you sexually makes my skin crawl."

"Mmm, you make me feel so _attractive_ when you say that."

Touching a gloved finger to her chin, he raised her eyes to his. "You know I love you, Elena."

She grabbed his free hand with her own and kissed his leather-covered knuckles. "I know. But every woman wants her husband to find her desirable."

"I do desire you," he quietly assured her. "Just not in the bedroom."

She rolled her eyes. "Well _that _one certainly won't appreciate me in the bedroom any more than you do. Which defeats the purpose, don't you think? Now… What about… What about him?"

Michael turned his attention to where she was looking. "The blond?"

"No, no. That wouldn't work. What if she's born with light brown hair? A child from the two of us? Never. Next to him, on the left. With the big black dog."

"He's short! Even my sister was well on her way to being over two meters."

Laughing, Elena said, "But imagine the intimacy of being able to kiss someone you can look in the eye."


	4. One and One and One

**4. One and One and One**

Michael had noticed and noted her yearly depression when they were dating, though he hadn't known then how regular it was. There hadn't been anyone to hide it from. Her mother was dead, her father non-existent, friends easily deflected and unobservant, and boyfriends were…just unobservant. But then Michael, who was none of those things, had come along. He was very much there, noticing everything even when he seemed not to, and was harder to deflect than the last wildebeest after a stampede.

By that same time next year they were married and he was, miracle of miracles, home. And she was "blue," as she had poetically tried putting it to him, wanting to see if deflection was possible if she took a softer route. It wasn't, though he let her pretend it was. For that, at least, she had been grateful.

The next year he wasn't home but he had called. He was a day early, but that he had remembered at all sent her into wet, hiccupy tears in the middle of a crowded street in London. She had been lucky to be near her car and sat in it until the bout passed. By the time he made it home later that week – two days too late – she was better and as reluctant as ever to tell him what was wrong.

If he couldn't be deflected then she couldn't be moved. It was something they had quickly come to realize. By silent agreement, it was something each respected in the other. It was probably the only reason he hadn't pushed harder for a child in the beginning. Her adamancy against it was unflinching. And, at first, she had had excellent reasons for not wanting a child.

"Frankly neither of us has the time for one, Michael." He was gone more often than not, and when he was home it was during the odd hours when she wasn't there. For her part, she was still in school and would have to seriously derail her graduate studies, something she wasn't ready to do.

Michael hadn't been able, or inclined, to argue with her or her reasons. And he hadn't decided to dig deeper. Which was all she had cared about at the time.

_"Elena."_

"Hmm?"

"Elena, I've been calling your name for five minutes."

She looked up at him from the little pink jumper in her hands. "Have you?" It sounded as vague and distant as she felt.

Michael sighed. "If you didn't want to do this today—"

"No, really," she said, forcing a smile for him even if he could probably see right through it, "I want to do this. With you."

"Elena, I know—"

"No. It's fine," she said sharply. "It's fine."

He let her pretend nothing was wrong and pointed to the jumper. "That's the wrong color."

Elena felt a smirk pulling at her lips. "You're just excited that you're getting the boy fathers want."

He made a particularly male sound. Usually she laughed and punched his shoulder. Today she smiled and shook her head.

"There's always so much more stuff for girls than there are for boys," she said.

"Are you sorry you aren't having the famous Dolovale First Girl?"

It was too early in the pregnancy for the kick in her stomach to be the baby. "What do four generations of Dolovale women know," she said lightly. "I'm sure it's my father's worthless genes proving themselves."

He kissed her temple. "I think they're lovely genes."

"You would."

He took the jumper from her hands. "We can always try again for a girl," he said softly.

That kick was definitely not the baby.

"No."

Not little Adam.

"Elena—"

_"No."_

That was what Michael wanted to name their son. Adam. If he had noticed that she only brought up the surprising name choice once – there were no known Adams in either of their families – he hadn't mentioned it.

The name was so close to Eva.

"Elena, just—"

"Michael, no. I don't want to try again. And I don't want to talk about it. Particularly not now."

Particularly not so close to the anniversary. Even floating the idea of having – of trying – for a daughter just seemed like…like some sort of sacrilege.

Eva.

So close to Evelyn. Her mother.

"I wish you would talk to me," Michael said softly, turning her to face him. "I wish you would tell me what about this time of year makes you this way."

She looked into his eyes, she had no choice, and wondered what he would do, how he would feel, if she told him about Eva. If she told him how the desperation and loneliness she had felt in those months after her mother's death had led her be seduced by a professor whom she had known was interested. How that tryst had resulted in a tiny, precious life. A life she had decided to destroy with almost as much impulsiveness as she had created it, while considering and reviewing the marks she had received from that same professor. Only to realize, months later, that she had been angry and upset then, too. That she had aborted the First Girl.

Would Michael hate her the way she had hated herself that first year? Would loathing grow between them? Would he trust her with their son, even though abortion was no longer an option for them? Would he be able to trust her at all?

"I wish you would talk to me, too, Michael. But I don't want to fight in the store. I want this to be—" Oh God "—a good day. Please."

He studied her for a moment, looking, she knew, for the things hiding within her skin.

In three days it would have been Eva's birthday. She would have been six.

"All right."

She graced him with a smile. "Thank you. Now," she said, "what is it you were trying to show me?"


	5. I'll Keep You

**5. I'll Keep You**

According to one of the stories her mother liked to tell, she had been deathly ill once as a child with something the doctors had been unable to identify. She, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend had tried giving her ice baths to get the fever down. Then they had taken her back to the hospital demanding that her doctor give Elena something, professional opinion be damned. She was eight and she was dying.

_Do something_.

Against his better judgment he had prescribed antibiotics, giving them dire warnings to bring Elena back at the first sign of a negative reaction.

A week later she was sitting up on her own and playing in the living room. A week after that she tired easily, but she was back at school.

Elena didn't remember it.

But this, _this_ she would always remember. And Michael's last words – "Say goodbye to Elena" to her father, and "You have to rest" to her – would follow her to her grave.

Screaming her rage and hurt, confusion and guilt as her father's and her husband's dead eyes mocked her, Elena knew it was true. Michael would forever haunt her in a way her father, just the wisp of a ghost until a few minutes ago, would never be able to do.

There was shouting in the hallway. She thought she heard her name. She thought she heard the high-pitched screaming of a child. Her child?

Someone approached the bed.

"Stay away from me," she growled. The pain in her chest wouldn't go. It was hard to breath.

They tried to touch her.

"I mean it."

Tears blurred her vision but nothing else was.

The arm was thick and belonged to a man. It snapped under her hands.

But she was still sick. He managed to stick her anyway. Elena stumbled out of bed as Nikita pushed open the door. Her eyes widened in horror as she took in the disaster at Elena's bare feet.

"Mommy."

How could she have… "Get him out of here," Elena rasped around her pain, around growing unsteadiness. "Get Adam…" She stumbled.

"Elena, you shouldn't—"

Her knees gave way. "…Adam…out…"

*

"Where is Adam?" Madeline asked her.

"With the neighbor's daughter."

"Hmm." She nodded. "And how do you feel?"

There was a long pause as Elena unwound the simple question. She tried catalogue her myriad feelings and determine what Madeline was really asking. Elena took a deep breath, made a decision, and widened her stance. "Still a bit weak from the illness. The doctors tell me I should take it easy for about a week or so."

Madeline looked briefly away then back at Elena. "Yes. I have that report. That isn't what I meant."

Which was what Elena had thought, but she had hoped that Madeline would let her slide. False hope.

"How do you feel about what happened?"

Elena breathed for a moment, in and out, trying to shut down the memory of guilt and rage and shame and anguish that threatened to spill out. She knew that Madeline would wait.

"I'm happy that it's over," she said, finally. "I'm…sorry that Adam had to see so much of it."

"He's young."

"I know. That's what I keep telling myself."

"Anything else?"

They both knew that there was so much more not being said. The "anything else" was just a formality.

Elena shrugged lightly. "It still seems like a lot of work."

Madeline tilted her head to one side in acknowledgment. "You know Salla Vacek couldn't have been brought in any other way. Your father was too clean. Too secure."

"And Michael?"

It took Madeline longer to answer that one. "He had become a liability that needed to be dealt with."

"But why like this?"

Madeline gave her a small smile. "We needed him to help complete the mission profile on your father."

"I see." She kept her hands clenched behind her back.

"You…thought very highly of Michael."

"He was the father of my child. And he did his best for me and Adam in spite of—"

"Simone?"

Elena gave her a brief nod. "The very least I could do was respect him. It seemed only fair."

The two women stared at each other, both wearing their most pleasant masks.

Elena broke first. Shifting on her feet she said, "When will my release papers be finalized? I want to get Adam settled someplace new as soon as possible."

"The better to minimize the trauma. Yes, I understand. Unfortunately that's not an option at the moment."

All the shields she had put in place for this meeting, so thin already, were breaking. Had she really believed that Section would uphold its end of the bargain they had made when Operations had all but ordered her to have a child? Apparently she had.

"Not yet. There's just one more thing we need for you to do."

[in]Fin[ite]


End file.
